eBay Looking for Allies Against Google 216
Vitaly Friedman writes "A report in the Wall Street Journal today talks about how eBay is looking for partners to defend against the growing threat of Google. Specifically, Google Base and the payment system in the works in Mountain View are seen as possible dangers to eBay's auctions and PayPal payment operations, says the report. Google Talk just throws some salt in the wounds by looking for a toehold in Skype's turf."
Re:I remember (Score:3, Interesting)
So, you're saying that Steve Jobs should have stated that Google, a non-existant company, was the enemy?
One good outcome of Google Payments.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh the joys of competition.
Re:I for one welcome our Google payment overlords (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember when Wal-Mart was young . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually was willing to learn to type "http://www.google.com" instead of "http://www.altavista.com" to search on Google; even from the outset, no other search engine came close to their level of quality (read: good search results).
Nowadays, Wal-Mart routinely grinds competition unto the dust. Woe betide the small businessman whose future neighbor is a Wal-Mart Supercenter. They're big, monopolistic, anti-competitive, predatory . . . all of the wonderfully evil traits which characterize success in our free enterpise system. This makes them fairly well hated, the price of success.
Nowadays, Google is percieved as the ultimate digital destructor - crushing internet opposition wherever it rises, brutally redefining markets and networking in that fashion most likely to lead to their own growth and the demise of competing technologies.
Either you love free enterprise or you hate it - either way, I wouldn't trust it!
Ebay's UI & Search Stinks (Score:3, Interesting)
Between the cleaner UI of a bookmarking system, the tagging, and purposefully active userbase I'm hoping fyndr can put a, yeah yeah, web2.0 face on the old web1.0 beast.
Re:I for one welcome our Google payment overlords (Score:3, Interesting)
There are plenty of things out there that anyone can get, but don't seem as hokey as PayPal. gmail accounts, myspace accounts (in the right context), etc.. It has more to do with the kind of people that are involved in using the service. The vast majority of individuals using AOL are not regarded by the rest of us as very bright. They are either paying way too much for dial-up, or adding AOL costs to their broadband.
I think PayPal has suffered from the same problem. Outside of eBay use, the only sites that have used it have been completely unprofessional in appearance. This gives us all a collective unprofessional opinion of PayPal. I actually think that PayPal's overall reputation has improved over the last several years and you see more and more legitimate sites using them. I'm not a particular fan of PayPal (even though my buddy Shuanqun works there), but they do fill a need. Competition will be good, reduce costs of both online payments and merchant accounts and hopelly legitimatize the service.
What about the advertising? (Score:4, Interesting)
A search for George Bush provides:
George Bush
Looking for George Bush?
Find exactly what you want today.
www.eBay.com
A search for Eggs provides:
Eggs
All your favorite collectibles!
Eggs and more -aff
Ebay.com
A search for Milk provides:
Milk
Save on Glass and Glassware!
Milk and more -aff
Ebay.com
In fact, I dare you to find a noun you can search for on google without coming up with an eBay add. As near as I can tell, eBay is Google's single largest advertiser. If they want to hurt google, they should start by cutting off some funding.
The article lacks merit, and PayPal is hokey. (Score:1, Interesting)
In all manners of misplaced judgment by agents of PayPal, there is a distinct measure of tresspass that is difficult to redress because such service is evidence of misplaced faith and trust in a service that is neither correlated with banking under the Uniform Commercial Code. I've lost USD 300 to PayPal, from the beginning when someone created an account on my behalf and without permittion, then moving fund into that account as an antic to compel me to ship a predefined goods and services at the mercy of their payment method.
Anyone that uses PayPal will surely know they are on borrowed time. PayPal apparrently moves the collected share of funds to no other place but Germany, and holds a pooled account with claims to Wells Fargo to generate interest. There you have it.
I think there is an equal amount of concern to agents of Google, thereby not evincing any attraction to reserve the same controlls of any currency or trust regulation in its service as conferred from the claimants and onto Google. Google, for the life of its service and employs, is an ADVERTISING AGENCY. Google has no value, and is more evidence to create its measurements of currency to debase the currency trusted to it -- no different than PayPal. Every one of them, just as PayPal, are evidencing their intentional ignorance to move societies into their pretended form of commerce, ignoring the splendor and pragma of true government of the people; a service oriented by popularity of ignorance, than the lectors of intellect.
As far as I can determine, any property within the grasp of PayPal will be hidden as PayPal Dollars -- no different than the speculations of Google to have its Google Coins. All I can say is the criminals in that Federal Reserve, Inc, have stopped the publishing of the M3 Money Supply and Gold and Silver is rising at a rate evincing the USD is about to collapse. PayPal Dollars and Google Coins are not shares to the stock of those corporations, but mismanaged currency of a collapsing economy of debt notes to no value in HJR 192.
Re:I hope Google shit on ebay (Score:3, Interesting)
Next you should just start selling yourself stuff and pumping your own feedback rating...of course that might look suspeicious so you'll need to open and nurture a whole network of accounts...
Once you break one rule... why not all of them ?
The reason Ebay is so successful.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Just try selling a handful of things on Craigslist and see for yourself whether people are flaky when there's no obligation to carry through on commitments. Unless Google can offer something that's binding I don't see it attracting EBay's seller community.
That should be a possible exit strategy . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
When they say, "Google would copy it," you say, "as soon as there's the slightest rumor of that, we offer to sell to them. If the product area stays below google's radar, we make money. If it doesn't, then we make our product good enough that they'd be better off buying us." An acquisition is generally a much more likely exit strategy than an IPO anyways.
Furthermore, every good idea doesn't have to be a new company. If you want to make something, and you think google is in a better position to do it, go pitch it to google and get hired. There is as much opportunity for entrepreneurial skill within companies as there is in starting new ones.
Re:doesnt work for me (Score:3, Interesting)
--
Plutonium
Great deals on Plutonium Shop on eBay and Save! www.eBay.com
Re:Whose wounds? (Score:2, Interesting)
Ebay should lay in the bed they created.. (Score:2, Interesting)
The following is an exchange I had with ebay:
Background: We all know power-sellers jack their shipping to cover the cost of them offering stuff at 1 penny. However if you read Ebays ToS this violates it.
I found a seller selling a USB dongle, domestic shipping via USPS (standard air mail, no insurance, etc). After an exchange with ebay, I was told that "Ebay trusts their sellers to set appropriate ship amounts".
Reading their ToS further you discover that its also a violation to list the handling price as a percentage of the final fee. I found several listings by an individual doing just that. I was given the same form letter.
Ebay is junk. They do nothing but protect their power-sellers. Many power-sellers hold feedback hostage. When you feedback like:
Joeblow - item recieved broken, did not respond to e-mails, attempted to call, would not speak with me, etc
Powerseller1111 - BAD EBAYER STAY AWAY!!!
you know exactly what happened. If ebay actually cared about the integrity of its system it would institute a double blind feedback system where each user inputs their feedback then its applied when both have inputed and saved it.
It was another nice idea that got ruined by the internet.